POV: Maya Chen
I woke up on my first morning in Crescent Hollow to the sound of howling.
My eyes snapped open, heart jackrabbiting in my chest as I lay frozen in the tangle of blankets I'd barely managed to arrange on my mattress before collapsing last night. The bedroom was grey with pre-dawn light, unfamiliar shadows turning my boxes into lurking monsters until my brain caught up with reality.
New apartment. New town. New life.
And something outside was howling.
I grabbed my phone from the floor—6:23 AM, Friday—and crept to the window, pulling back the curtain just enough to peer out. The backyard was overgrown, wild grass and bushes creating a buffer between the house and the forest beyond. Morning mist clung to everything, turning the world soft and indistinct.
The howling came again, distant now. Not the sound of a dog, exactly. Too... purposeful. Too much like a song.
"Wolves," I whispered to the empty room. "Because of course there are wolves."
I should've Googled this. Did the Pacific Northwest have wolf populations? I'd spent six years in Seattle and somehow never thought to ask. Then again, I'd spent those six years in the city, where the wildest thing I'd encountered was the occasional aggressive raccoon digging through the apartment complex dumpsters.
The howling faded, replaced by the sounds of the forest waking up—birds I couldn't name, branches creaking, something small scurrying through underbrush. Normal sounds. Nothing to justify the way my skin was prickling, or the strange disappointment settling in my chest that I couldn't hear the howling anymore.
"Coffee," I declared. "You need coffee and perspective, in that order."
My kitchen was a disaster zone of unpacked boxes, but I'd had the foresight to keep the essentials accessible. Ten minutes later, I was sitting cross-legged on my living room floor, back against the couch I'd dragged in last night, nursing a mug of coffee and staring at the mountain of boxes that represented my entire existence.
How to Build a Life from Scratch: A Guide for the Recently Demolished.
My phone buzzed with a text from Rebecca: Morning! How was the first night? Any serial killers? Ghosts? Hot neighbors?
I typed back: Woke up to wolves howling. Does that count as local color or reason to flee?
Her response was immediate: WOLVES??? Maya that's SO COOL. You're living in a nature documentary. I'm intensely jealous.
You can have the wolves. I'll take the city noise back.
Liar. You're going to love it there. Give it a chance.
I sent back a noncommittal emoji and set the phone down. Rebecca's optimism was one of her best qualities and occasionally one of her most annoying. She'd been supportive of my decision to leave Seattle, even while questioning my method of choosing Crescent Hollow (throwing a metaphorical dart at the map of job postings within driving distance).
"Sometimes the universe puts you where you need to be," she'd said with the confidence of someone whose life had never imploded.
I'd nodded and not mentioned that the universe had a shit sense of direction if this was where I needed to be.
But sitting here now, coffee warming my hands, morning light starting to strengthen through the windows... it wasn't terrible. It was quiet. Anonymous. No memories lurking around corners, no chance of running into Ethan and whatever-her-name-was at the grocery store.
Melissa. Her name was Melissa, and she worked at his firm, and you're not thinking about this anymore.
I shoved to my feet with enough force to slosh coffee over the rim of my mug. "Unpacking. You're unpacking today. That's the goal. Productive. Forward-moving. Not wallowing."
The self-directed pep talk echoed in the empty apartment, which made me feel only slightly unhinged.
I spent the morning creating order from chaos. Clothes in the bedroom closet. Books on the built-in shelves flanking the fireplace (non-functional, but aesthetically pleasing). Kitchen supplies in cabinets. Bathroom essentials in the surprisingly spacious linen closet. My drafting table—the one piece of furniture I'd insisted on bringing despite its awkward size—positioned by the living room window where the light would be best.
By noon, I'd made enough progress to feel almost human. I'd also found three wine glasses I didn't remember packing (probably Rebecca's doing), a collection of architectural magazines I'd been avoiding because Ethan had his own column in one of them, and at the bottom of a box labeled "misc," the framed photo from our graduation.
I stared at it for a long moment. Maya and Ethan, master's degrees freshly earned, arms around each other, the whole future stretching out like a promise. We'd been so sure. So stupidly, naively sure.
"Nope." I shoved it back in the box and carried the entire thing to the smaller bedroom that would become my office. Some things could stay packed.
My stomach growled, reminding me that coffee wasn't a food group. I hadn't thought to buy groceries yesterday—too exhausted from the drive and the unpacking to do anything but crash. Which meant I needed to venture into town.
Alone.
In a place where I knew no one.
"You can do this," I told myself, pulling on jeans and a sweater that didn't look like I'd slept in my car. "You're a functioning adult. You've navigated Seattle, Boston, and that extremely aggressive dim sum place in Chinatown. You can handle small-town grocery shopping."
Crescent Hollow looked different in daylight. Less watercolor painting, more... actual town where actual people lived. The street parking on Main Street was full—pickup trucks mostly, with a scattering of Subarus and sensible sedans. People moved in and out of shops with the ease of familiarity, calling greetings to each other, stopping for conversations that seemed in no hurry to end.
I found a spot near the town square and killed the engine, taking a moment to observe.
The gazebo I'd noticed yesterday was occupied by a group of teenagers, all oversized hoodies and dramatic gestures as they clustered around someone's phone. The coffee shop—The Crescent Grind—had a line out the door. Across the street, a bookstore with a hand-painted sign ("Chapter & Verse - New, Used & Rare") had books stacked in the window display with what looked like deliberate whimsy.
It was... nice. Aggressively nice. The kind of town that probably had a winter festival and a summer parade and everyone knew everyone else's business.
My personal nightmare, in other words.
But I was hungry, and wallowing in my car wasn't going to change that. I grabbed my bag and headed for what looked like the main grocery store—"Hollow Foods" (they were really committed to the naming theme here).
The automatic doors whooshed open, and I was hit with a blast of artificially cooled air and the smell of fresh bread. So far, so normal. I grabbed a cart and started navigating the aisles, trying to figure out what constituted "starting over" groceries.
Eggs. Bread. Coffee, even though I had some. Vegetables that I would optimistically pretend I'd actually cook. Pasta. Sauce. Wine. Definitely wine.
I was debating between red and white (why not both?) when I felt it.
The sensation of being watched.
I turned, scanning the aisle, but there was just an elderly man studying soup labels with intense concentration and a harried-looking mother trying to negotiate with a toddler about the necessity of vegetables.
Nothing threatening. Nothing unusual.
But the feeling didn't go away.
I grabbed both bottles of wine and moved to the next aisle, telling myself I was being paranoid. This was what happened when you spent three days alone with your thoughts and true crime podcasts. You started seeing danger in grocery stores.
Still. The prickling at the back of my neck persisted as I finished shopping and headed to the checkout. The cashier—name tag reading "Sophie"—was maybe nineteen, with a pierced nose and hair dyed an impressive shade of purple.
"New in town?" she asked as she scanned my items, not even trying to hide the curiosity in her voice.
Was I that obvious? "Just moved in yesterday. That noticeable?"
"Small town. We notice everything." Sophie grinned. "Also, you look terrified, and nobody who's lived here more than a week looks terrified of the grocery store. Give it time. We're mostly harmless."
"Mostly?"
"Well, Old Man Hendricks likes to yell at tourists about parking, and Mrs. Chen—no relation, I'm guessing?—will absolutely give you unsolicited life advice if you stand still too long. But actual danger? Nah. Crescent Hollow's safe." Something flickered across her face as she said it. "Safest place you could be, actually."
There was a weight to those words I didn't understand, but before I could ask, she was already bagging my groceries and calling out the total.
I paid, grabbed my bags, and headed back out into the afternoon sun that had finally burned through the morning clouds.
The feeling of being watched intensified.
I stopped on the sidewalk, bags in hand, and did a slow scan of the street. People going about their business. Cars passing. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Except—
There. Across the street, partially obscured by the crowd outside the coffee shop.
A man. Tall, broad-shouldered, wearing dark jeans and a leather jacket despite the mild temperature. He was standing completely still while the world moved around him, and he was looking directly at me.
Our eyes met.
The grocery bags slipped from my hands.
I didn't hear them hit the ground. Didn't hear anything except the sudden rushing in my ears, like standing too close to the ocean. The world narrowed to a tunnel, and at the end of that tunnel was him.
Dark hair. Sharp features. And eyes that were wrong—too bright, too intense, too...gold?
No. Brown. They were brown. Trick of the light.
But I couldn't look away. Couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.
He took a step forward, and something in his expression shifted—surprise? Recognition? His lips parted like he was about to speak, about to cross the street, about to—
"Oh! Honey, you dropped your groceries!"
An older woman materialized beside me, already bending to pick up my scattered purchases, and the spell—because it had felt like a spell—shattered. I gasped, air flooding back into my lungs, and dropped to help her.
"I'm so sorry, I don't know what happened, I just—"
"No harm done. Nothing broken!" She handed me the wine bottles with a warm smile. "You okay, dear? You look pale."
"I'm fine, just—" I looked back across the street.
He was gone.
"Clumsy," I finished weakly. "Still getting used to the... altitude?"
That didn't make any sense—Crescent Hollow wasn't that much higher than Seattle—but the woman just patted my arm sympathetically and helped me gather everything back into the bags.
By the time I'd thanked her and made it back to my car, my hands were shaking.
What the hell was that?
I'd locked eyes with a stranger for maybe five seconds. There was no reason for my heart to still be racing. No reason for my skin to feel too tight. No reason for the strange ache in my chest, like I'd lost something I'd never had.
"Lack of sleep," I muttered, starting the car. "And too much coffee. And stress. You're stressed and tired and projecting."
But I checked the rearview mirror three times on the drive back to my apartment, looking for a man in a leather jacket who had no reason to follow me.
He was never there.
I spent the rest of Friday and most of Saturday finishing the unpacking, assembling furniture, and studiously avoiding thinking about the grocery store incident. By Sunday morning, my apartment looked almost livable. I'd even hung some art—prints I'd collected over the years, architectural drawings, a watercolor of the Seattle skyline Rebecca had given me as a going-away present.
It didn't feel like home yet. But it felt like the possibility of home.
Sunday afternoon, restless and tired of my own company, I decided to explore the town properly. I'd seen Main Street, but Crescent Hollow sprawled beyond that, climbing into the foothills, spreading along the river that cut through the valley.
I drove first, making a mental map. The residential areas with their mix of old Victorians and newer construction. The industrial zone near the river—warehouses and manufacturing plants, surprisingly robust for a small town. The community center, closed on Sundays but impressive from the outside, all glass and modern lines that seemed incongruous with the town's old-fashioned aesthetic.
New construction. Someone had money here.
Eventually, I parked near the river and decided to walk. There was a trail system—well-maintained, with clear signage—that followed the water upstream. The sound of the current was soothing, white noise that let my mind drift without fixating.
I walked for maybe a mile, passing a few other people—a couple with a dog, a jogger with impressive lung capacity given the hills—before the trail opened onto a viewpoint.
The vista stole my breath.
From here, I could see the entire valley. Crescent Hollow nestled in the curve of the river, surrounded on three sides by forest that stretched to distant mountains. The town looked small from this height, temporary, like humans had been allowed to build here but the forest could reclaim it whenever it chose.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
I spun around, heart in my throat.
A woman stood on the trail behind me. Mid-twenties, athletic build, with long auburn hair pulled into a practical ponytail. She was dressed for hiking—boots, cargo pants, fitted jacket—and she was smiling in a way that seemed genuinely friendly rather than serial-killer-friendly.
"Sorry," she said, holding up both hands. "Didn't mean to startle you. I'm Sienna. You looked like you were having a moment with the view."
"Maya." My heart rate was starting to return to normal. "And yeah, it's... impressive."
"Best view in town. Well, second best. There's a spot higher up in the hills that's even better, but the trail's rougher." Sienna moved to stand beside me, looking out over the valley. "You're new. Moved into the Brennan property on Pinecrest?"
I blinked. "How did you—"
"Small town." She grinned. "And Dorothy mentioned she had a new tenant. Architect from Seattle, starting at Morrison & Associates. That's you, right?"
"Is everyone in this town psychic, or just well-informed?"
"Bit of both." There was something in her voice—amusement mixed with something else. "Word travels fast here. Especially about newcomers. We don't get many people moving to Crescent Hollow."
"Why not? It seems nice." And as I said it, I realized it was true. The town was growing on me, moss-like, just as Dorothy had predicted.
Sienna's expression shifted, becoming more serious. "It's isolated. Some people like that. Others find it... suffocating. Takes a certain kind of person to stay."
"What kind?"
"The kind who doesn't mind small spaces. Who values community over anonymity. Who can keep secrets." She turned to look at me directly, and I had the sudden unsettling feeling I was being evaluated. "You running from something, Maya Chen? Or running toward something?"
The question was too perceptive, too intimate for someone I'd just met. I should've deflected, made a joke, changed the subject.
Instead, I found myself answering honestly. "I don't know yet."
Sienna nodded slowly, like I'd passed some kind of test. "Fair enough. Well, if you need anything—friend, guide, someone to show you where the good food is—I'm around. I work at the community center. Stop by sometime."
"I will. Thanks."
She started back down the trail, then paused and glanced back. "Oh, and Maya? The howling you hear at night? Don't worry about it. They're more scared of you than you are of them."
She was gone before I could ask what she meant.
That night, I dreamed.
I was running through the forest, faster than I'd ever moved in my life. Trees blurred past, the ground soft beneath bare feet I didn't remember removing shoes from. The air was cold and sharp and tasted like freedom.
Something was chasing me. Or I was chasing something. I couldn't tell which.
The forest opened onto a clearing flooded with moonlight, and standing in the center was a wolf.
Massive. Black fur shot through with silver. Eyes that glowed gold in the darkness.
I should've been terrified. Should've run.
Instead, I walked forward, hand outstretched, and the wolf watched me with an intelligence that was entirely human.
"I know you," I whispered.
The wolf's lips pulled back, revealing teeth that should've been threatening. But it looked like a smile.
And then it lunged—
I woke up gasping, tangled in sheets soaked with sweat, my heart hammering like I'd actually been running. The bedroom was dark except for the digital clock reading 3:47 AM.
Outside, distant and haunting, came the sound of howling.
I pressed a hand to my chest, feeling the frantic beat of my heart, and stared at the ceiling.
"It's just a dream," I whispered. "Just a dream."
But I could still feel the phantom sensation of soft fur under my fingertips.
Could still see those golden eyes watching me like they knew all my secrets.
Could still feel the overwhelming certainty that I'd been meant to find that clearing.
That I'd been meant to find him.
Even though that made no sense.
Even though it was impossible.
Even though I didn't believe in fate, or destiny, or any of the romantic nonsense that had led me so spectacularly astray before.
I pulled the blankets up to my chin and told myself I'd feel better in the morning.
I told myself this was just the stress of moving, of starting over, of trying to rebuild a life from the broken pieces of the old one.
I told myself a lot of things.
But as I finally drifted back into uneasy sleep, I couldn't shake the feeling that Crescent Hollow was hiding something.
And that something was hiding right under the surface, waiting.
Waiting for me.